Political analyst is on leave amid sex allegations
Five women accuse Mark Halperin of inappropriate acts.
The multimedia career of political journalist and author Mark Halperin is on shaky ground after a report that he sexually harassed five women during his tenure at ABC News.
Just hours after the publication of the CNN report late Wednesday, Halperin was pulled from his contributor’s role at MSNBC and NBC News. Plans for an HBO miniseries based on his reporting in the 2016 presidential campaign were scrapped by the premium cable network, and the next season of the Showtime documentary series “The Circus” appears in doubt.
Five women who worked with Halperin when he was political director of ABC News in the early 2000s told CNN that he propositioned them or touched them inappropriately while on the job. Three women said Halperin pressed up against them while having an erection. None of the women complained to ABC’s human resources department about his behavior. The accusers spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity.
The accusations against Halperin join the growing maelstrom of sexual harassment and assault charges, which have rocked the careers and reputations of former Weinstein Co. co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein, former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, screenwriter James Toback and others. As more women come forward to allege years of bad behavior, the roiling national discussion of workplace harassment shows no signs of abating.
In a statement to CNN, Halperin acknowledged that he mistreated female employees at ABC News and issued an apology.
“During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me,” said Halperin, 52. “I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize. Under the circumstances, I’m going to take a step back from my day-today work while I properly deal with this situation.”
By Thursday morning, Halperin, a paid contributor who regularly appears on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and other NBC News programs, was on leave indefinitely.
“We find the story and the
allegations very troubling. Mark Halperin is leaving his role as a contributor until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood,” the cable network said in a statement.
The alleged incidents involving Halperin occurred when he was political director at ABC News from 1997 to 2007. An ABC News representative said, “Mark left ABC a decade ago, and no complaints were filed during his tenure.”
But some women who worked with Halperin at ABC have commented on social media that there had been talk within the company at the time about his treatment of women.
Clarissa Ward, a senior international correspondent for CNN, tweeted out the Halperin story and said, “This was an open story when I was @ABC for years.”
Former ABC News staffer Emily Miller put a #MeToo hashtag on her tweet of the CNN story and said she too was harassed by Halperin. She then added: “To be clear, I was NOT one of the victims in this story about Mark Halperin. I was ANOTHER junior ABC employee he attacked.”
As of Thursday, no sexual harassment complaint had been filed against Halperin at NBC, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. As an onair contributor, Halperin does not have an office or workspace in the network’s headquarters or newsroom.
Halperin has a multiyear contract with NBC, but such deals can typically be terminated in the event an on-air talent embarrasses the company.
Showtime Networks issued a statement that there had been no allegations of “untoward behavior” by Halperin during the production of “The Circus.” However, the premium cable network said it will “evaluate its options” on the status of a second season of the program.
After Halperin left ABC, he became one of the most prominent political journalists in the country, appearing frequently on television and co-writing the bestseller “Game Change” with John Heilemann about the 2008 presidential campaign, which was made into an HBO film.
In 2016, Halperin and Heilemann co-hosted “With All Due Respect,” which aired on Bloomberg TV and MSNBC.